


Photograph

by rewmariewrites



Series: Harry Potter Shorts [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Neville Longbottom, Fluff and Angst, Gryffindor Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Learning to move on, M/M, Minor Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, Multi, Neville Learns Healthy Relationships, Neville Learns to Love, Not Canon Compliant, POV Neville Longbottom, Pansexual Neville Longbottom, Past Neville Longbottom/Draco Malfoy, an abuse of italics, ed sheeran knows how to make me feel for neville, jk rowling isnt allowed here, learning to let go, mentioned minor Neville Longbottom/OCs, mentions of coping mechanisms, you can also pry neville from my cold dead hands, you can pry my commas from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 09:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17598371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewmariewrites/pseuds/rewmariewrites
Summary: Loving can hurt, sometimes.Neville knows this better than anyone, he thinks, though most people seem to forget that about him.





	Photograph

**Author's Note:**

> hahahahah have another ed sheeran harry potter fic  
> based on photograph from X

Loving can hurt, sometimes.

Neville knows this better than anyone, he thinks, though most people seem to forget that about him.

He’s known loving can hurt since he was five years old and - for the first time he can remember, though he’s sure it’s not the first time it happened, and it  _ surely _ wasn’t the last - his Gran frowned down at him and murmured, “How mediocre.”

He’s known loving can hurt since he was eight years old, when his Gran took him to see his parents for the first time at St. Mungo’s, and they didn’t even look at him. It took two years of irregular visits for Alice and Frank to start pressing bits and bobs of waste into his hands. Those were the only gifts they could manage then, and even fourteen years hence that’s about as far as they’ve ever gotten in terms of parental affection.

(Which means that’s about as much as Neville’s ever received in terms of parental affection, from  _ any _ of his relatives, but, well. Maybe it’s for the best if he doesn’t dwell on that too much.)

It was a bit of a surprise to him, however, to find out that being  _ in love _ could hurt just as much as  _ loving.  _

_ Surely being in love is different,  _ he thought at twelve, the first time he looked at Hannah Abbot and considered asking to hold her hand. 

_ If two people choose to love each other, rather than being stuck together because of family, it won’t hurt as much. It can’t hurt as much, _ he thought at fourteen, sick with jealousy at the sight of Dean and Seamus walking into the Great Hall hand-in-hand for the first time, blushing and laughing and waving away house-wide cheers.

_ They won’t love me because they have to, they’ll love me because they want to, in a way that Gran and my parents never could. If it’s a choice, they won’t hurt me. If it’s a choice, they’ll be careful,  _ he thought at eighteen, Sword of Gryffindor still in-hand, sitting next to Luna and becoming a little lost in the way her platinum hair shone in the pre-dawn light.

_ If they’ve been loved like I’ve been loved they’ll know that it can hurt, and they won’t want to do that to me,  _ he thought at nineteen, drowning in the way Draco’s eyelashes fell across his cheeks just after a kiss. 

Being in love back then, after the war but before the rest of his life, was the only thing that made Neville feel alive. It was the only thing that  _ kept _ him alive after the trauma of seventh year, after having to hide for just under six months in the Room of Requirement from classmates who cursed and teachers who tortured and so many  _ children _ becoming  _ casualties of war - _

Neville has exactly one photo, one memory, one moment of the love that kept him alive, that healed him enough to survive being hurt again. 

(He can always be grateful for that, at least, even when he finds it difficult to be grateful for anything else about that relationship. Draco kept him alive enough to be hurt again, when his Gran’s hurtful indifference or his parents’ innocent ignorance would have ruined him.)

In the photo, Neville and Draco are tangled together in the roots of one of Hogwarts’ many gigantic trees, legs intertwined, arms twisted. Their heads - Neville’s honey-blonde to Draco’s white-gold - are bent close together under the pretense of studying from the open book on their laps, but truly they’re just looking at each other from the corners of their eyes. At some unknown prompting they break into raucous, soundless laughter, and Draco rests his forehead gently against Neville’s in a moment of helpless affection.

It’s a beautiful moment, one of their better days. Neville likes to try to remember  _ this _ Draco - the one that helped Neville study, who brought him hot tea and warm socks, who forced him out of Sprout’s greenhouses and into the wider world - rather than the one who broke his heart. 

Not that Draco should be blamed, not at all. No matter how much Neville hurt after they broke up, he never once blamed Draco for leaving.

They were just too much for each other. 

Draco was too angry, too abrasive, too repentant, too  _ vulnerable _ to really be ready to dive into a whirlwind romance like they did. Neville, too, was on the cusp of change; for the first time in his life, he was a  _ Gryffindor.  _ He had slain the dragon, he had protected his people, he had become  _ brave. _

A Knight of Gryffindor and the Shamed Slytherin Prince. In retrospect, Neville can see why it didn’t work, even if it does seem like a nice enough story.

Even on top of all that trauma -  _ so, so much trauma _ \- they probably wouldn’t have worked out anyways, because neither of them actually knew how to properly love another person. All Draco had for reference were his shitty fascist parents and a gaggle of tortured, fascist teenagers. All Neville had was his shitty neglectful family and his aloof Gran and his sick parents; until Hogwarts, Neville actually thought affection was a  _ trick. _

(Not entirely, but… enough. Affection always came with a price in Gran’s house, there was always a catch, always something to gain. She would have been better suited to Slytherin, his Gran.)

(Bless Ginny Weasley and her hurricane of a mother for showing him otherwise, in their own aggressively devoted, warm-hearted way. Bless Luna for showing him how to love quietly, how caring is in the way you show attention. Bless Hannah Abbott for showing him how love is in the ways you touch and don’t touch a person, the way you ask, the way you  _ mean it  _ without saying a single word _. _ Bless Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil for taking him aside and trying  _ so hard _ to teach him that you can love without taking someone’s shit, and without someone taking yours.)

So even though when Draco left it almost broke him in half  _ (I can’t do this anymore Neville I can’t keep hurting you this way I love you I love you so much it hurts but I keep lashing out at you and you keep lashing out at me and it’s not healthy I love you but we can’t heal like this I can’t repent and be together with you IloveyouI’msosorry-),  _ it didn’t quite. Neville held on by the skin of his teeth, he fought and scraped and went through so many rough patches he’s surprised he didn’t literally come out the other side with a rash. For years he hid this photograph in the pocket of his jeans - a pair of baggy, monstrously ripped and paint-stained things that used to belong to Luna, then to Draco, before he stole them - just so he could hold it close, counting the seconds until the spell would reset and picture-Draco would lock eyes with the camera, and it felt like he was locking eyes with Neville. 

For just that moment when their eyes would meet their hearts were never broken, and time was forever frozen still.

In retrospect, Neville finds it absolutely creepy that he spent so much time looking at this photograph and waiting for Draco’s image to look at him. It’s probably why he hid this photo away in the first place. Good job, past him, for breaking those unhealthy cycles.

But now, years later, he can be grateful. Instead of seeing the great love of his lifetime in this photo, he sees two happy boys, learning and living and loving together in exactly the way they needed to learn and live and love at that moment in time. He can see the good past the bad, and the bad past the good, and he can be  _ thankful _ for it.

Besides, he knows now that loving can heal, can mend the soul.

It’s not like it didn’t take _time_ for Neville to learn this. He spent _literal years_ hung up on Draco, agonizing over their last moments, simultaneously praying and dreading it when he showed up in _The_ _Daily Prophet._ It got easier, though, over time. He started leaving his house and his greenhouses. He started going to therapy. He started going to bars with Ginny, or Dean and Seamus, or even - on a couple of _very_ memorable occasions - with Luna. Most of the time he went home alone with a lump in his throat, feeling guilty and incompetent and sullied, but it got better. It’s not like it could have gotten _worse,_ but there was definitely improvement. Eventually.

So it was only slightly surprising when he started finding himself talking to men and women and people he found beautiful. It was slightly more surprising when they found him beautiful in turn, and even  _ more  _ surprising when he found that he… enjoyed it.

He enjoyed the attention, sure, but he enjoyed talking to these people, getting to know them, and even taking them home. He took a lot of people home from those bars after he figured that out, and though he liked to think he’s cool enough to say  _ there were so many I don’t even remember their names,  _ it would be a lie. There were a lot of people, but he remembers them all.

(There was Terry, who had pink hair and thick thighs and laughed in the face of gender, and they made Neville go crosseyed from that thing they did with their tongue. There was Joseph, who was tall and lithe and had patches of vitiligo all across his chest, and he liked to whisper into Neville’s ear in a way that gave him goosebumps all the way to his toes. There was Hayley, who was small and round with tight black curls that fell around her face, and she didn’t like sex at all, but Neville brought her home anyways, and they stayed up all night reading his books about Gillyweed.)

(He remembers all of them, and all the others, because he knows what it’s like to be forgotten, and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even a one-night stand.)

It was on one of those nights that he met Blaise.

At this point it had been such a long time since sixth year (because Blaise’s mother had sent him to Italy as soon as it looked like things were starting to become irreparably hairy) that Neville didn’t actually recognize the man he was flirting with as  _ Blaise _ until they were both three drinks in and sitting just a little too close to be entirely decent.

Neville had sat back abruptly, setting his drink down with a clatter that was soundless against the background noise of the bar. “Blaise Zabini?” he’d asked, completely derailing whatever flirtatious conversation they had been having.

Blaise had frowned and nodded, twisting his almost-empty glass between his hands.

“Of  _ course _ you are. I’m Neville Longbottom, and you’re - you’re Draco Malfoy’s best friend,” Neville had explained, fingers tight on his knees, panicking  _ just a little.  _ He was over Draco, truly, it’s just that he’d quite liked Blaise before he figured out that he was, you know,  _ Blaise Zabini Draco Malfoy’s Best Friend,  _ and his brain hadn’t quite figured out how it was going to deal with this new information.

Blaise’s eyebrows had gone sky-high.  _ “You’re _ Neville Longbottom,” he’d declared, incredulous.

“Yes,” Neville answered, confused, still panicking.

“But you’re…  _ exquisite.  _ No wonder Draco was always so hung up on you - were you always this beautiful? Was I blind at Hogwarts?” Blaise leaned tantalizingly closer, and Neville had to swallow hard before answering.

“Well, I - no, I wasn’t - well, that is, I don’t know?” Neville reached for his glass again, desperate for something to distract him from Blaise’s lips. “You would have to ask Ginny, she’s good at deciding that sort of thing.”

“I suppose I’ll have to get in touch with the Weaslette, then,” Blaise had murmured, before draining the rest of his drink and setting the empty glass gently down. “I think I had better leave now, but I truly am sad to go. It was wonderful to see you, Neville, and I hope to see you here again  _ very  _ soon.”

The last bit had been hummed directly into Neville’s ear as Blaise leaned forward and brushed his lips across Neville’s cheek in farewell. The baritone of Blaise’s voice cut directly through the din of the bar, hitting Neville in a place that made him clench his fists against a shudder. Feeling a little helpless, he watched Blaise walk away.

The thing is, abrupt departure notwithstanding, Neville never thought he was going to see Blaise again. He thought that was  _ it, _ that because of their separate but tawdry histories with Draco Malfoy, he would never see Blaise again.

But then Ginny told him that Blaise had  _ actually _ contacted her and asked whether Neville was attractive at Hogwarts. And Ginny had said yes.

And, like magic, Blaise became a part of Neville’s life. He’s honestly not even sure how it happened: one day he and Blaise were sitting at a bar, sharing drinks and laughter, and the next they were curled up on Neville’s sofa, Blaise’s feet in Neville’s lap, reading their books as a Celestina Warbeck record (a gift from Molly and Ginny, of course) crooned quietly in the corner. 

It happened quietly, without fanfare, but Neville kind of likes it like that. It’s comfortable.

Neville used to think comfort was the antithesis of passion, but not anymore. This kind of passion just looks different than the passion he’s used to, the passion he was given and the passion he sought out. He likes it.

He’s used to _ Draco Malfoy _ passion, which is made of life-threatening danger, glittering gold spells, a darkness around your heart, a love that is a light in the darkness. It’s about desperate touches and lingering lips, grasping hands in the cold, and sharp nails dragging fire up the insides of your thighs.

_ Blaise Zabini _ passion is about laughing so hard your stomach aches and you literally cannot breathe or see past the tears in your eyes. It’s about or soft hand-touches in the back corners of restaurants, a hard wall against your back and a hard body against your front as their teeth worry your bottom lip. It’s about debating something ridiculous until you’re breathless and dizzy, or spinning you around the living room when your favourite song comes on the radio.

It’s that last one that Neville has in a photograph, one that he keeps in his wallet. There’s a copy that’s framed at home, too, but he likes to keep this one in his wallet just in case he gets lonely.

He has no idea what song is playing, but Blaise is spinning Neville around the living room of their little apartment. Both of them are laughing uproariously; Neville’s face is entirely flushed red and his eyes are nearly squinted shut from the force of his smile, and Blaise’s face is upturned and gleeful. Neville stumbles backwards over a coffee-table, almost upturning it, and Blaise just picks Neville up and spins him around and out of the way. Neville throws his head back on a laugh, smacks Blaise’s arm, and leans in for a kiss. 

The photograph ends like that, with Blaise softly setting Neville on the ground, kissing through giggles and smiles. On the back is written, in Blaise’s gorgeous script,  _ I’ll wait for you to come home. _

It’s not like it’s all rainbows and sunshine, though. Neville still has days where he can’t get out of bed, or where he retreats into his greenhouse and refuses to talk to anyone but the Venomous Tentacula that’s invaded the back corner. He has flashbacks and nightmares and panic attacks, and they’re better than they used to be, but he doesn’t think they’ll ever go away completely. 

Blaise has trauma too, though it looks different. He was away for the entirety of the war, by grace of his mother’s good sense, but he sometimes wakes in a panic thinking he’s still in Italy, away from everything and everyone he’s ever known. He gets quiet and sullen some days, inexplicably and almost at-random, and it’s not until Pansy tells Neville, “It’s because most of  _ our _ friends are dead or in prison while yours are being  _ venerated, _ fuckface, so just let us  _ grieve,”  _ that Neville learns, and he lets it go.

And if sometimes they snap at each other, if they say hurtful things to try and make the other bleed and hurt like they’re bleeding and hurting, it’s okay.

Well, it’s  _ not _ okay - both Neville and Blaise have spent long hours apologizing and discussing and agreeing that this kind of thing is  _ not okay _ and trauma and illness should never be an  _ excuse _ for outright shitty behaviour - but sometimes people get scared, or angry, or things build up to a breaking point. So long as there are apologies and genuine attempts at healthier behaviours, it’s okay. 

And so far, it’s been okay. Neville doesn’t want to jinx it, but… it’s been great, even.

Which means that this photograph of Neville and Blaise dancing around their living room (with Luna’s blurry thumb obscuring the top left corner) is a balm to Neville’s nerves on those all-too-familiar days where he is far from home. Because of the nomadic nature of his and Luna’s jobs - he researches magical flora while she studies magical fauna - he often has to leave Blaise behind.

This photograph, which Blaise tucked into his breast pocket _yearsmonthsdays_ ago _(keep it next to your heartbeat,_ Blaise had whispered), fills Neville with the kind of longing that makes the joy of returning home so, so sweet. It is a reminder of this and every kiss he and Blaise have ever shared, and every kiss yet to come.

(There are desperate kisses when they are sad or lonely or one of them has been gone for too long, and there are sly kisses when one of them has done something sneaky. There are soft kisses for soft non-verbal mornings, lingering kisses for lazy afternoons, and butterfly kisses for saying good morning and goodnight. There are smiling kisses, crying kisses, laughing kisses - there are so many different kinds it overwhelms Neville just to think of them all, even as it makes him smile so hard his face feels as if it wants to break in two.

“Neville, are you being haunted by Wrackspurts again?” Luna asks when that happens, all innocent face and sly eyes. He just laughs, and nods.)

When Neville calls the next time from a little magical payphone somewhere in Botswana, he doesn’t even say hello. “Do you remember how you kissed me under that lamppost back on sixth street?” he stammers, so eager to get the words out that he trips over almost all of them in his haste.

Blaise just laughs gently, sounding a little tinny from the distance. “Of course I do. That was our first kiss, three weeks after I met you in that little dive bar where I found out you were  _ the _ Neville Longbottom, Snake-Slayer and Draco’s ex-lover.”

_ “Snake-slayer,  _ really? That’s the best title you could think up?” Neville scoffs.

“You can’t say it isn’t fitting,” Blaise insists, “After all, you won out against Nagini, Draco,  _ and  _ me. That’s quite a lot of snakes.”

“I... might have a type,” Neville admits. Blaise can’t see Neville blush, but he laughs like he can.

“You know, I was going to wait to kiss you that night until I’d walked you all the way to your door, like a proper gentleman. You Gryffindors wouldn’t know decorum if it slapped you across the face, though, so you stopped me under the lamppost and tugged me in first. I couldn’t let you win, of course, so I gave as good as I got - it’s a miracle that I didn’t strip you down and take you right there on the street, love,” Blaise muses, grin obvious even through the slight crackle of the phone line.

Neville remembers. He remembers this night in technicolour detail, actually, with a wrenching fondness that often leaves him breathless. It wasn’t anything special on Neville’s part, really, it’s just that - well - it’s difficult to put into words, this feeling that he’d had. 

It had been their fourth proper date. They were on their way home - to Neville’s house, like Blaise had said - and Blaise was in the middle of telling a story. Neville had looked from those animated hands to that sparkling face, at the way he glowed in the soft yellow light of the lamppost, and he had wondered. In that moment, he had wondered if he would ever be brave enough to kiss Blaise like he wanted to, to take him home and have his way with him, to make him breakfast in the morning and convince him to stay. 

It says something about his personal growth that that simple act of wondering about bravery instigated a spite-response so intense that Neville had immediately pulled Blaise down into what quickly devolved into a mind-meltingly, deliciously wonderful kiss under the lamppost on 6th Street.

And right now, Neville feels like he’s living that moment all over again. 

Is he brave enough to leave his job, his research, two weeks early just so he can see the man he loves? The man he wants to marry? Oh Merlin, that’s another thought - he’s been considering it for a while, and they’ve talked about it a time or two, but marriage has always been… scary. An incredibly large commitment, especially when faced with role-models such as Molly and Arthur Weasley or Frank and Alice Longbottom. So that’s the new question, then: is he brave enough to ask Blaise to marry him? Is he brave enough to propose that three years is long enough to know whether or not they can spend the rest of their lives together, like the people he looks up to do?

Is he brave enough to risk Blaise saying no?

(He wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor for nothing. The Sword could have picked anyone, and it picked him.  _ Him. _ He can do this.)

In that moment, Neville comes to a decision.

“Blaise?”

“Yes, love?”

“I’m coming home now - today, as soon as I can find the next Portkey out. I can’t - it’s been too long since I’ve seen you last, and I don’t think I can wait another minute. Just - wait for me, okay?”

“What, now? You’re just going to  _ find _ a Portkey? You only have, what, a week left on your expedition? What about Luna?! You do realize it’s three in the morning here, and I have work in the morning - I can’t just  _ wait  _ for you?” Blaise exclaims, but he’s laughing, and it makes Neville laugh too, though his is a little manic.

“Luna will survive on her own for two weeks. There’s an Erumpent herd here that’s become quite enamoured with her, and I think she’s going to extend her trip for a couple months to see if she can’t catch the birthing season. And don’t give me that tripe about work - you’re a partner at your law firm and Pansy is the only one who comes anywhere close to having any power over you. I realize she’s terrifying -  _ trust me,  _ I  _ realize  _ \- but just… take a day? Please?” Neville is not above begging, especially when it works so well on Blaise, even when Blaise can’t actually  _ see _ his spectacular puppy-dog eyes.

Blaise doesn’t even sound bothered when he replies with a smile in his voice, with no hesitation, “Oh  _ fine _ you great big sap, I’ll laze about the flat all day waiting for you instead of going into work and being a responsible human being. What a hardship.”

“What will you tell Pansy?”

“Oh, I’m terribly ill.  _ Cough, cough,  _ and all that.”

“You don’t even sound convincing - she’s going to tear me limb from limb once she finds out this was my idea!”

“One must always sacrifice for love, darling,” Blaise declares, and Neville can’t help a small smile.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Neville murmurs, pulling the photograph out of his breast pocket to run his thumb gently over the lettering on the backside, already making mental notes to ask Dean where he and Seamus got their rings. “So, you’ll wait for me to come home?”

“Yes, love, I’ll wait for you to come home.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at rewmariewrites.tumblr.com!   
> for updates on fics check the #progresscheck tag, or search by the fic name, series name, or fandom.
> 
> thank you all for always being supportive and kind, I really appreciate the love  
> even though I don't often respond, I read all of your comments and keep them close to my heart. they're amazing, and I'm over-the-moon appreciative that you take time out of your day to tell me how much you love my work.   
> thank you, thank you <3


End file.
